Accessing Data Collected by ADS-B Exchange

In addition to the browsable map of real-time data, ADS-B Exchange is also making available historical and real-time data for personal/non-profit use at a very low cost. If you find this data useful, or just want to see it’s distribution continue, we greatly appreciate any donations, especially monthly recurring donations to fund the ongoing operation of the site. This data would cost a significant amount of money to buy elsewhere, and would not include all military, all block listed, and all block requested aircraft.

As noted in the legal terms and conditions, commercial use requires written authorization from ADS-B Exchange. This is necessary to ensure operating this site remains financially viable so we can continue to provide the service. We may ask that certain commercial users contribute financially to the operation of this site if they desire to use the data in revenue-generating products.

This service could end at any time if the cost to provide it outweighs incoming revenue/donations. Please keep that in mind when downloading data/using this service – go easy on the infrastructure if you can. There are very real hosting/bandwidth/storage costs for a large and growing data archive such as we have at ADSBx.

Attention Developers! Please contact us to use the API in your public app. We will publish a blog post about our app, if you would like us to do so. We will also work with you to provide the data you require in the most cost efficient way for ADSBx.

A donation for JSON Data is 0.15 USD per GB to cover bandwidth and storage costs is required.

Each day is approximately 10-20GB, thus 1 day is approximately $1.50-$3.00 USD in bandwidth to download at ADSBx cost. [donate here]

ADSBx requires all academic researchers cover the cost of ingest, aggregation, download, and storage for their use. If you are and academic researcher with an official email, contact ADSBx for an agreement.

ADSBexchange.com requires that all qualifying academic researchers donate to cover infrastructure costs to ingest, aggregate, and archive the data set.

Data is available beginning on June 9, 2016.

If you meet all 3 requirements, you can request access to download the JSON archive historical fileshere.

Please explain your use case – commercial, non-commercial, or otherwise. State your intentions for the data, how many days of data, and how often you would like to download. An account will be created and you will receive an email with information. ADSBx requires that all published work using ADSBx data credits ADSBexchange.com or ADSBexchange, LLC for providing the data.

All use other than personal non-commercial must have a commercial data license agreement.

How the data is created:

Building on the “Querying Live Data” section above, essentially, every 60 seconds, we issue the following JSON query and store the results: http://public-api.adsbexchange.com/VirtualRadar/AircraftList.json?trFmt=sa

Essentially, this is a JSON of all aircraft, with “short trails” activated. The short trail duration used in the historical data archive is 65 seconds. This gives all the current information on the aircraft, plus any known positions, altitudes and timestamps for the previous 65 seconds. Since this query is issued every 60 seconds, all known positions should be captured in the data. Please consult this page for an explanation of data field contents.

This file is captured every 60 seconds, typically on the 30-second mark of any given minute. This generates 1,440 files daily, which then get zipped into a single archive per day. The archive for the previous day is typically available by 0100Z (01:00 UTC) the following day. Data is available beginning on June 9, 2016. Daily files are currently in the neighborhood of 10 GB each.

Transfer rates may be somewhat limited depending on the latency of your connection.

Historical Data (by specific aircraft/ICAO codes)

While this data is contained in the JSON files discussed above, it is not easily searchable for a single aircraft. Historical data for specific aircraft can be searched here: https://flight-data.adsbexchange.com/. The server for these queries is our AWS data warehouse (described below).

SQL Query-able Amazon Redshift Database

Amazon Redshift is based on PostgreSQL. The data contained in the JSON files discussed above is also loaded into an Amazon Redshift database that can be queried with SQL syntax, or linked to any number of data analysis tools such as Tableau, redash.io, chartio, Microsoft Power BI, and more.

The ADSBexchange Amazon Redshift database can be queried directly via the internet.

While Amazon Redshift contains the data already available in the JSON files discussed above, storing, indexing, and making this data available via Redshift does carry a non-trivial financial cost to ADSBexchange. Access to our Redshift database has an associated cost. If you have a personal, non-profit, or commercial use in mind, please contact us for more information on getting access.

By accessing the data contained on ADSBexchange.com and associated sites, you agree to the following terms and conditions.

ADSBexchange’s authorization to access the data grants You a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-assignable, and terminable license to copy, modify, and use the data in accordance with this AGREEMENT solely for the purpose of personal, non-profit research, non-profit education or commercial internal testing and evaluation of the data.

No license is granted for any other purpose and there are no implied licenses in this AGREEMENT. Any commercial use of the data contained requires the written permission of ADSBexchange. This AGREEMENT shall become effective upon first access of any data via ADSBexchange.com. This AGREEMENT is subject to modification or revocation at any time at ADSBexchange’s sole discretion.

If You create a publication (including web pages, papers published by a third party, and publicly available presentations) using data from this data set, You must provide ADSBexchance.com with a copy of (or a link to) the publication and You must cite the data as follows:

ADSBexchange, http://www.ADSBexchange.com

You agree to expunge any and all copies of the received data set(s) upon completion or termination of stated research and/or termination of data access or use.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. ADSBexchange USES ITS BEST EFFORTS TO PROVIDE ACCURATE DATA. HOWEVER, THE DATA PROVIDED HEREIN IS ON AN “AS IS” BASIS. NEITHER ADSBexchange, ITS MEMBERS, ITS OWNERS, RESEARCH PARTNERS, LICENSORS, AND DATA PROVIDERS MAKE ANY WARRANTY, EITHER IMPLIED OR EXPRESS, OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, COMPLETENESS, RELIABILITY, OR AVAILABILITY OF ADSBexchange DATA, APPLICATIONS, OR SERVICES ACCESSIBLE THROUGH OR MADE AVAILABLE BY ADSBexchange.

TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW, YOU WILL INDEMNIFY, DEFEND AND HOLD HARMLESS ADSBexchange FROM ALL LIABILITIES, CLAIMS, DEMANDS, COSTS, JUDGMENTS, DAMAGES, LOSSES AND EXPENSES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY USE OF THE DATA BY YOU. IN NO EVENT SHALL ADSBexchange BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE DATA.